tabs in vi

[Joel Loo]

Someone wrote (sorry forgot who):
>=> Is there a way to make it so that when ever I hit the TAB key
>=> in 'vi' that I get 4 spaces rather than an actual tab?  I would
>=> rather not have to run expand after running vi, as I would only
>=> want to do that if I actually changed the file.

This works on my Unix:

     :map! ^V<tab> ^V<sp>^V<sp>^V<sp>^V<sp>
       
Of course, to type in a ^V you will have to type ^V^V, making the command
to be actually:

     :map! ^V^V<tab> ^V^V<sp>^V^V<sp>^V^V<sp>^V^V<sp>

hope this helps [tm]
-Joel